Here are this week’s top must-read
stories from #MuckReads,
ProPublica’s ongoing collection of the best watchdog journalism. Anyone can
contribute by tweeting a link to a story and just including the hashtag
#MuckReads or by sending an email to MuckReads@ProPublica.org. The best submissions are selected by ProPublica’s
editors and reporters and then featured
on our site and @ProPublica.

As many of the United State’s 104 nuclear plants near the end
of their approved lifespans, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will
relicense the reactors. But the commission’s oversight issues may be putting
the millions of Americans that live near reactors at risk.

Though child-care centers in Florida must obtain a license,
summer camps are unregulated – as a result, several sex offenders have
snuck in as employees. Lawmakers have been warned about the lax laws since
the mid-1980s, but they’ve “taken virtually no steps to protect kids.”

New
York police and Mayor Bloomberg have asserted that religion does not guide
their investigations, but the AP says newly obtained documents show, “in
the clearest terms yet,” that the police “focused” their
scrutiny on Muslim Americans. A 2007 police investigation into the region’s
Syrian population, for example, excluded Jews and “focused on the smaller
Muslim community.”

When Kinder Morgan bought the energy company El Paso last
fall, Goldman Sachs advised El Paso on the sale. Now, a ruling in a shareholder
suit shows how Goldman was in involved in all sides of the deal. Goldman claims
transparency, but others say the bank’s handling of the deal was “GS at
its most shameless.”

Warehouse workers in Southern California, the nation’s
biggest distribution hub for consumer goods, claim their employers neglected
safety violations and cheated them out of fair pay. The warehouses deny
wrongdoing, but the allegations echo findings in two state investigations. Similar
suits filed in Chicago suggest systemic industry problems.

State auditors in Ohio have identified roughly million in
missing or overdue state funds and have only managed to recover million of
the money. The state said that, until recently, they didn’t have a clear debt
collection process. They’re now working on it.